Now, all right, where is Mr. Low? Oh, guys, out there. I got it, I got it. Stand off screen to still the first we're talking to come to system first. Make sure he's on set first before I come set. I'm not leaving my trailer to Makana. Hey, I don't care what number he is on the call sheet. I remember that every time I went to set you sitting out on the deck to make sure he's on his first.

Hi, everybody. It's literally with me, Rob Lowe. So this this episode is exactly why I wanted to do this podcast, to have somebody on like Matthew McConaughey, who I know we've worked together, you know, we've seen each other around. But, you know, I have an affinity for him, but I don't really get to see him or talk to him.

And I and he's accomplished so much in his life and his career.

And he's, you know, occupies a real specific place in the Zite, Gaist and has done it all. And everybody listening probably has an opinion on Matthew and feels like they know him and nobody ever knows anybody really. And so doing a long form interview is how you get to know people and you know McConaughey as he's a brand.

I mean, listen, we think Matthew McConaughey, you know what you're thinking, you're thinking something. It may be Dallas Buyers Club Oscar, it may be what the fuck is those Lincoln commercials? I don't understand them. It might be that I don't know, but it's going to be something. And I can promise you at the end of this interview, you're going to be thinking something else.

Here we go.

How are you, brother? I mean, damn, you're just a fucking machine. And I love it.

And I'm doing pretty good. Man, you've done these book tours before is my first one. I had to do this all virtually and remotely, which turned out to kind of be a blessing because I can be in four countries before noon. You know, the book did well. Hell that I didn't know if I was going to get buried by election covid remote. It had it found that it's found Islam. It got above the water line. People are digging it.

You know, we got to do movies. We go on movie tours. We're usually talking about someone else's movie that we played a part in. And finally, this is something I put out that I wrote, I directed it, I edited it. I'm like, hell, yeah. And I'd love to talk about it. And it's not getting really it's not really getting boring because even though we'll talk about same you and I don't talk about same subject today, I probably talked about 50 times, but it'll be a completely different conversation about so and that way it's not getting it's not getting boring.

So and and let's face it, all actors like to talk about themselves. I mean, that's why I wrote a book I don't know about you. I was like, how can I talk about myself more? I know I'll write a book and then I'll have to.

Exactly. You're so lucky, though, that you're you're you're doing it virtually because you're the travel on a book tour is like the old days of junkets before when you used to go around the country doing them.

Well, I was that's what I was going to do, is I was going to go around the country and go to Australia and some other places and go do sort of a stand up our storytelling act book. Go, Wow, that's great. Would have been fun, but I would have covered about, what, four percent of what I've covered and I would have been dead dog tired and beat to hell, you know.

Oh, that would be so good. I hope you do that though.

It when when audiences can come back. I'd love you to do that.

It's something still thinking about, you know. I mean, you know, it's right. And it's a look, we got to do a movie. We are doing there's four filters from our expression, right, you getting somebody else's script, someone else directing you, someone else is landing in the camera, someone else is editing you. So that's four filters from our original expression, right? You go write a book. MAN One filter is the written word, but you go do like a stand up or you talk like we're talking our no filters live one take.

It's on boom. Didn't have to you know, that's that's very exciting.

Well, the other thing is, it's like, as you know, we've we've lived our lives playing characters and in the public consciousness. And, you know, you do an interview and whatever, but people can't really ever know you really unless they know you.

But you write a memoir about your life and you're authentic about it. It's it's a great if I just know for me, I'm always like, if you really want to know what I'm about, I had these are these two books. And at the end of it, you're going to know, will you love me, hate me, whatever, but you're going to know how much freedom did you feel from writing and telling your story? Oh, I had a blast.

I mean, writing this book, though, it's it's that great. I think it's the Mark Twain quote about, you know, I'm always at my happiest when having written the writing. Writing got it right. But I, I loved it. I and I thought your tone was really, really specific to you.

And and that's like I could hear you. I could hear your voice as I read it. And I think that's really important. Oh, cool. Well, I mean, it was what what made you at this point in your life, do it? Because I remember when I talked about doing it, people were telling me not to do it. They were telling me, well, a memoir. I mean, that's what people do on their way out or and I'm thinking, no, no, I don't want to hear from somebody on their way out.

I want to hear from somebody who's right in the thick of it. It's fucking live.

Yeah, well, yeah, it was. That's why, you know, as I open the book going, look, man, I was not interested in a memoir.

That idea felt to me like it felt like those people who really weren't and you definitely weren't interested in pronouncing it memoir you wanted. You were like, I want memoir, I'm Wall.

I wanted to make sure I felt yes, I like Intercontinental International, you know. Yeah, of course. Of course I man, I can show you my passion. Yeah, I know you are. Yeah. I got more than just an I.D.. So so I wanted to traditional.

One of memoires was what you said. Those people said I was like oh memoires. That's like OK, I'm fading out the sun setting. Is that silhouette shot. Goodbye everyone. It's been a great run. And I was like, man, that sounds regressive. That sounds, that sounds that. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not ready for a denouement here. And so on the bridge. Where do you hear that. Oh, I picked it up man.

I'm paying close attention.

So I said, well look, let's look at the last fifty and see if there's something that feels like a verb, something that feels like an approach that maybe hopefully I can come out of the book looking at it going, oh, this is help me go be more feel more vital for the next however many I've got going into.

Yeah. And then that thing happened that, you know. The more personal you get. You start to go, oh, actually now it's more translatable to more people, maybe, you know, which I didn't think it was going to be that way, but then once I realized, I was like, oh, well, no shit. That's like all art, right? You know, the more person we get on, the more people go, oh, I saw myself in that.

Oh, I see myself in your story or I have a similar story, so. Yeah, that's is it funny what the same thing like? I I wrote a chapter and one of them about sending my kid to college and I almost didn't write it because I was like. People do it now. People send their kids to college. People send their kids to war, right? The fuck. Why are you getting so twisted up about when your kids grow up or whatever?

And and I almost didn't write that thing in it. And it's been the one thing that has had the most life out of sight, out of all of it. Well, it was a generous, common human experience, you know. And, you know, I suppose I hear this. I'm sure, you know, you've heard it. I'm willing to bet you definitely have, but. There's a disconnect when somebody is in a position like us that just to hear that from, for some people to hear that we go through a similar crisis or a hardship or something where we didn't know how to do something people like, I didn't know you did, too.

And you're like, yeah, you mean it was hard to send your kids off to. Yeah. And it gives them some sense of the pleasure or. Oh, well, if they went through it too good. OK, it's not original to me. It doesn't matter if you're a movie star celebrity or a rich and famous whatever. We all go through a similar situation I think it gives gives people some freedom to.

What was the hardest part of the book for you to write? Like the hardest subject, the hardest theme, how to how to land the plane. So it didn't feel like a memoir. How to finish that. Finished the book in that final, you know, live your legacy now, how to make that feel like a verb, not a conclusion. Like I was closing the curtain and I had to ask and go ask a lot more questions because the first part of the book, I step in shit all over the place and then I figure some stuff out and I start catching a lot of green light to have success and relationships.

I find my love when I do well. Movies, I get an Oscar solves on a kitchen, all these green lights. Right. And it didn't mean I had any less questions, but now and I said, OK, how do I land the plane and go into the end of the book? A lot more questions came up because I realized I hadn't I didn't really end up at some destination here, which is also how I see life. I didn't end up like Tennessee.

Now I figured out thank you very much and I'll let you know.

But wait a minute. You are one thing is amazing about your book and that I learned from you in the book is you very early on had a plan and lists of things you wanted to accomplish and you got to those destinations. I mean, it's kind of incredible. Yeah.

That surprised the hell out of me. I found that no to that list that I wrote and I think nineteen ninety two and looked at him and I said, Jesus, your ten goals. I remember writing it but I never looked at it again and I said, you've done them. How the hell.

And you never I never looked back and saw that note. I never carried that with me. I remember the night I wrote it, I wrote it in my top bunk at the Delp Delta Tau Delta fraternity house. I just smoked a bowl and wrote those ten goals.

No, I find that so hard to believe. I was back in ninety two, you know, the wild years. Yeah.

So I write it down. I don't remember. I never looked at it again. I forgot what I wrote down. And then I find out however many years later. Now you didn't forget what you wrote down. You never looked at it again but obviously did. Didn't forget because you pulled them off.

Yeah. And a question for you, yeah, yeah, have you grown have you grown and evolved so gracefully one year a year, an ageless wonder. Number two, you're still you're still relative. You still have a great attitude. You still have you. And and, you know, you've gone from, you know, in the eighties, they go to the number one guy on the list to Green Light a movie. You're not that anymore, but you're still working.

You're doing things. You've got a life. You've got a family. You've got a smile on your face over there. You look like you still did at eighteen. What I mean, all over, you got some things going on in my hunch, because you look make it look like you don't you kind of you got to let the stuff slide. You've got a great sense of humor. You don't take things to seem to take things too seriously.

But I know it ain't you know, it's by accident. What's your what's your what's your secret sauce. Yeah.

You're nice to say that. I appreciate that, man. Well, I think a lot of it is attitude, and I think we share that. You know, you're from Texas. I'm from Ohio. You know, we had a dream. We knew what we wanted to do. Like, there are a lot of options for me.

I got to do this or a permutation of this because I wanted to do this. I didn't want to be anything else. So I got a lot of ambition and a lot of drive still.

Yeah. And and the other thing is, is I at least for me, I like doing new stuff.

That's I was so happy to see you write the book and I was so excited to read it because you don't have to write a book. You clearly did it because you had a passion to do it. And, you know, there's plenty of people who are where you are in life that would never occur to them to do it, nor would they want to, nor could they write. And and I think that's that's really it's that kind of chance taking another chance.

But you know what I mean? It's like something unexpected. And I think we share that. And that's a thing I kind of realize that the world changes every day. And what was acceptable or or what was sounded like a good plan yesterday may not be today. And and then the other thing is for me is expectations. I really try to not have them. You know, I try to. You know, be like, you know, for you, you know, you win an Oscar that's the top of the mountain in acting, but you can't have an expectation, I'm assuming, of what that end actually gives you or is for you, because at the end of the day, it's going to be something totally unexpected that you never saw coming.

So you don't want to get you don't want to wake up and go like Peggy Lee. Is that all there is?

So I try to really manage my my expectations, whether it's. For good things and bad things. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. And I think, you know and I hear that. And some some sometimes some people, if we manage our expectations or don't have a clear cut, high end expectation for the outcome, sometimes some people get. Lazy and apathetic. But yet what you're saying is you're still grindin, you're choosing the experience, the process going.

I've got to get a buzz here in life. I want to take this certain risk and it's not for the result of it because, hey, I'm dancing through the rhyme, but. That's that's I'm with you working on a theory now called Chasing yet that, hey, we never have those arrival's if we can get off of this result oriented stuff and just stay in the process to do things and take the intelligent risk that we take and go through life trying to pull stuff off, that's as good as it gets.

And I think that's what you're saying, is your expectations, because you don't you know, you seem to be you've done it. You've done it. You seem to do it very gracefully. You seem to have a certain it seems like it's whimsical. I know it's not. You just explained reasons why it's not. But that's a good that's a really good point to say. Manage your expectations.

And even if it doesn't come out to what you maybe even kind of hoped, would, is that really why you did it anyway? You know, yeah, for sure, and the other part of it is just not a practical thing, the business that you and I grew up in is completely changed. I don't need to tell you you're right in the thick of it. It's it literally is.

You know, you wake up one day and you're movie you did for Warner Brothers is going be on television. Nobody told you. I mean, it's like we live in a completely different world.

So what it means to be anything in this business. That is not what it meant even a year ago.

So you writer, writer, actor, TV star, movie star singer, Toure, stand up comic, it's all out the window. It's all different. And that's really empowering for me. I'm excited by that. I don't get I don't get into your place.

I'm like, ah, you go, this is going to be your secret sausage right there. You got all that unknown and you're sitting there saying, I'm empowered by that. That excites me. That turns me on. There you go. That's that's that's good value across the board for anyone to take in your life right there. I hear you. I don't know either. And I'm a little excited, too, because. I'm really not. Going to do anything to fight, to change it, like my my my role is not to go.

No, I'm going to fight for cinema. I'm going to fight for keeping movies in the theaters. That's just not my fight. I understand those who want that fight, but because I'm not the guy that's going to change that and go, that's what I want to go go to the mat for. I'm like, what will happen, will happen. So right. Let's let's rock and roll. Let's look for some opportunities here. How soon can we look for opportunities here in this world?

The world still going to want content. You know that more than ever, what content they're still going to where are they going to digest it different places than they used to? Does the theater ever really come back that communal think? Does it matter?

You know, are we just telling stories? There's so easy to tell. Stories I was saying earlier, all the places I've been remotely on a book tour for countries and four hours, unless some access is kind of exciting, what we do with that, this is not just in person, but this is pretty damn good, man. Look at this technology. We're sitting here hanging out in my office. You're in your living room. And I didn't go to Santa Barbara.

You didn't come to Austin. I'm going to get up from here and go have lunch with my kids live 30 seconds after we say goodbye. I have to take the flight. I have to go to the green room and do the hair, makeup, wardrobe and come over and sit down and talk to sit down and make sure the lighting was in some kind of classroom about it. You know, it's true. And that's the you know, and we need to celebrate and remember that when the other things that we used to love maybe aren't there anymore, you know.

And yeah, I think that's interesting that it's not a hill you want to die on, you know, we don't want to end up being the what's the the jif of the old man yelling at the the cloud cinema used to be this. And I remember.

And you can't we it's what you do. You do that.

That's a memoir, right. That's right. Now it's over. So I'm saying goodbye. I'm the last bastion. No, I'm not interested in it either. I hear you.

The other thing I was struck with in your book is, is your dad is such a great character, little an actual character. Yeah. And and I want to go out the way he went out.

Right. And he called literally called his literal shot is shot so. Well so you what would he say to you. Did you ever hear him call a shot. Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Hey, you know, we're out playing golf, we're hanging around and something comes up and he's winning and he just goes on the whole and whatever things happen, way to go and everything. So I'm at Jesmond Pop. You got it all figured out. And the conversation turns over to he and mom and you know what's going on.

I go, boys, when I leave this place, I won't be making love to your mother. He would say, boy. Let me just you so when I get down out of here. I'm going to be making lovely mother. And damn, if he did six thirty in the morning on a Monday morning, wakes up frisky. Hey, mama, make love soon as he finishes the heartfelt heart attack on top of. And then this isn't in the book, but my mom tells it calls the paramedics where the little living on this little sort of cul de sac in this little neighborhood in southwest Houston, all the neighbors have come out at seven a.m. Now, you know, there's a paramedic ambulance across the street, the mechanise driveway and their role in a man on the gurney.

My mom still in her nightie. They've got a sheet over him. Right. That would be the nice thing to do. Right. And guess who's pulling the sheet off going? No, you're not going to cover him up. I want the world to see why he was known as Big Jim.

Come on. Yeah, you can. Mother and neighbors are all out there going, oh, my God, oh, God.

And Mom's already still on the charge of like he did it. He did it. This is how he said he was going to go. That's on Bulley.

It's so genius. Yeah. It's the only other person I ever heard did that. They used to say that Nelson Rockefeller went out that way. Did you ever know that one? Did not know that.

Yeah. They're seen now, by the way, Nelson Rockhouse. What talk about a dated reference.

So if you do the math of Nelson Rockefeller's death versus my age, that shows you what a fuck up I was that I was paying attention to Nelson Rockefeller dying and his secretary, I think it was. And now I don't want to get sued by the Rockefeller estate. I know that's coming now. We represent the Rockefeller estate and you have slandered him on your podcast.

But yeah, but I remember as a kid thinking that's a cool way to go out. Yeah, the coolest. Is the definition of cool, by the way, what what is your golf handicap these days? Twenty five, not a twenty five. I don't believe it for a minute. Yeah, I remember I used to be a four know in high school. I know.

It's why I was asking. I don't play. I play. We have an annual event for our our fundraiser. I play once a year. I just have chosen not to make the time. I mean. You know, I tried a few years ago to go back and say, I'm going to get my golf game back. Mm hmm. And, you know, starts that, why am I so sad? Well, I shot myself a little thirty nine on the front.

Oh, I may still have and I may still have it. Forty nine on the back got me back. I tried it and then I started grinding again and I noticed how much time it was taken from my life because I'm down there.

Oh that's hard to forget. You have the kids at that age. I mean I'm in it. I even at CNN eight, you know, forget I even asked I, I the reason I ask is I gave golf up one hundred percent during my kids and then when they moved out of the house, I went back to college. I didn't swing a club for I didn't swing a club for twenty two years.

OK, well that's because you're in the middle of the season. I'm in, I'm in the no golf so. Yeah. Yeah that's right. You're, you're in the you're in the definitely in the no golf season. Good.

Good on you Papà Mackan ahead. But here's the one thing though. Can I just tell you this please. Put a golf club in their hands early. I didn't. And I guess my one little piece of advice, it makes a huge my son now has come to it on his own at twenty twenty three into twenty five, but he's like, Dad, why did we not play when I was younger?

Well, we tried it with that and he went out. And. Took it up and loved it for a few months, the season changed and New Sport came to town, Iowa and a switch.

But he's your I got to remember that, actually, because the other two, we haven't put a golf club in their hand, but it is a great time to screw around with them. Yeah, just hit some stuff around the clock. And when it's such a great, like legacy, because whenever I'm on a golf course, I'm thinking about my grandfather. I thinking about my father, you know, and then I'm giving it to my son and it's just a really there's there's so little of that left in our culture.

Well, I remember that when I was 18 years old, you know, I grew up my dad played for the Green Bay Packers. I'm living in Texas football's king. I get to the ninth grade. I've now, you know, barely got Peachfuzz of my pecker.

So all of a sudden, I'm not I'm not I'm not running as fast nor as big as I used to be. Now, at these other kids, I'm going to school football team. These guys got beards. Right? And so I'm going like, well, I used to be the guy that was hard to tackle. Now I'm not the biggest guy, but I'm also not near the fastest. I don't think I want to play football anymore. But how am I going to tell my dad?

And I remember calling him back to my room. I was very nervous about telling him I wanted to go play golf.

And when I told him I wanted to play golf, he goes, Oh, Kotomi, great idea, son. I was like, What? I thought you were going to be upset. He goes, No, I go, Why? He goes, Let me ask you a question. So what? He goes, do you know it's me coming to your room before I get to your room? And I go, Yes, I do. Because how do you know I go, I hear you.

He goes, What do you hear? I hear this. He goes, Yeah, I got a four inch plate back here, six screws over here.

Another minute. Then he's like, Play golf man.

You can do it till you go down.

It was he told me that when I was 14, 15 years old.

I am, by the way, my my producer before you got on was like, make sure it's a juicy interview. And I was like, kind of I just got to talk shit because we've known each other for so long and he's such a great dude. But just for the for the record, we have our pull quote Matthew did only at Peachfuzz until he was 19.

But you see, there it is.

I mean, by the way, and and that and the most out of my chest is 16.

Same. Hold that thought. We'll be right back. But when you ask how do you how do I keep it going, like I also like. I what's the word it's not I got to think the right word here, it's. Grinding, you said grinding it it is it's grinding and like like thinking about things, the fact that you coined Mikasa Makana reconnaissance, that I had heard it and thought it was genius, but I never knew that you coined it.

Yeah. And like, that's that's a rob move for sure. I was like, I doff my hat to you, sir.

That's a really, really good one. So did you. It was yet in Park City at some distance. So tell that story cause it's so good. Yeah.

So so it's Sundance and I'm doing these interviews and people are like, man, you've really been on quite a run. These you got mud. I think Dallas Buyers Club is coming up, but it done a few that had really kind of gotten there above the water and was getting recognized for some roles. If you really are running this and this and this.

And I and I was think I was like, yeah, in my head I wouldn't like musically, I was like.

Yeah, and put together an album, putting together a really nice album of music with the album needs it a title needs an album title, and in the next interview I went sat down with and I've talked to the guys since you got them TV. I said, I'm going to I'm going I'm going to I'm going to try it right here. But I knew I couldn't say. I want to call it the Mikasa. What do you talk you are about?

So I said the guy goes Tascon. You know, you've really been on Iran, really? And I was like, yeah, you know what I was talking to this morning? Somet the same thing. He actually coined it because. Oh, really? Because. Yeah, yeah.

He called it the reconnaissance the guy because that's great. That's great. And that might stick. I was like, right. He goes, what do you think about. I was like kind of sounds fun to say. Kind of rolls off the tongue constantinou kind of fun. Kind of cool.

Sounds like he goes hajee brilliant bastard you. It's so good. But it was a reconnaissance, it is a reconnaissance. We're living in the reconnaissance. We are living in it. It's happening right now. It's a verb is just the latest thing, it's a verb.

Do you have fond memories of doing contact. I do. So for those listeners, Matthew's great in contact with my beloved, beloved, beloved, amazing Jodie Foster and directed by Bob Zemeckis. You know what's interesting about that movie? I have to second part in it. I came in to do for fun and that the science of that movie, like, holds up big time. Yeah, like, yeah, it's it's intense. The science of it.

Yeah, it is that. And, you know, like a lot of people now I'm hearing a lot about that movie. You know, you hear people, you're in different places in the world, different demographics, like different shows. You're in different times your life. Boyd's contact and Interstellar are coming at me from the outside world a lot now.

A whole lot.

Well, Interstellar is is is that there's a whole other subject I want to get to. And I say, but you're right. I wonder why both those movies obviously are thematically similar.

Yeah, I, I don't know.

People thinking about, you know, after covid year, thinking about what is it, you know, what where are we going to go with the how do we get off this earth? Some people I'm sure, thinking that. Right. You know, there's been an ongoing conversation and battle with like the existence of God and science, which is the reason why I love doing contact and wanted to step into the the believers role. Yeah. Yeah. And then I met with you know, I haven't kept up much with Bob Z.

I've run into him quite a few times and he still, you know, Mr. Bob Z. Bob Xamon. Yeah. It works better, better as Bob Z and Bob Zemeckis. Bob said, oh by the way only Bob Z.

I think the one see the sort of big scene that we're all in is that conference table scene. Yeah. And where I have one of my favorite lines I've ever said is an actors that we don't even know if these aliens believe in God.

My favorite. It's great, isn't it? Yes, isn't that great line I was playing like a version of Ralph Reed, the conservative coalition guy. Yes, his whole. His whole. Raise on debt, see, I'm competing with you on the French stuff now. Yes, was was was do these aliens believe in God?

But we shot that scene for, like, four days.

It was a long four days. Yeah. And I lost my voice for two of them and they had to shoot a steroid into my throat. And the first two days, I don't even know if you remember this when it came to we obviously didn't do my coverage.

We did everybody else. And I would just tap my pencil for my lines.

Never said a word, but that was like Angela Bassett and Tom Skerritt and James Woods.

You and I mean, like this murderer's row got it was fun. Yes.

You know, that's the first time that I'd worked with somebody like Bobbsey who's choreographing camera moves, that that was the first time I'd ever been like, OK, and you'll be here. You say that half of the line. And on this note, you then step to this mark. And so it was a whole new dance for me to work with Bob Z because I was now working with the production, working with the cameraman, is working with cranes, working with different marks like I'd never done before.

It was a whole new discipline for me to learn.

I think it's a great discipline. I take a lot of pride in it. And as far as I know, you do too. Somehow you must run up against actors are like, I'm going to do what I want to do and the cameras there to record me. But I think that's kind of self-defeating.

Well. I've been guilty of that myself as well, I mean, I guess that it's a because I got to do I got to do it's going to be true for my my man. But I don't want to I don't want to know. It's finding it's it's finding the truth for your man. You can't do what's not true for you for sure. That's job one. I mean, that goes without saying but finding a way to. I once worked with a director, use the guy who shot Backdraft and the Abyss.

Can you imagine? Yes. You shot a movie underwater and a movie about Fire Cenizo. And he kept wanting me to open a blind on a certain thing. And I realized he just wanted me to open the blind because the shot was going to be bitchin. Right. And look fucking great. So, you know what else could have motivation is any do that.

I'll tell you a story, though, about where that can go wrong. Day's confused. There was a part I was there was an actor who could kind of gather around and go. So what do you do? What would you be doing? You know? And this actor said, well, I wouldn't be hanging with this group here where you're shooting the scene. I'm actually going to be over with my girlfriend playing guitar and reading poetry and wriggling. I was like, great, but can you do that here with the group?

Because this is what I have were lit and where the camera set up and everything and the actor goes, no, I can't. I'll be I'm going over there. And it was like, OK, wriggled.

But, you know, I don't have time to go set up and shoot and light that scene over there to cover you is like, well, that's what my man would do. Well, the guy ended up writing himself out of the movie. So if at least go, can you do what you need to do where the light is if you are on one of those tracks? If I have to do is true of my men, make sure you do it where the light is, please, because you will you don't need to tell me that.

I'm like I'm like a moth to flame. I tell the DP's, like you put up a pretty light.

I'm going to go fucking stand right in front of like that is the number one. I quote that that did you put up a pretty light. I'm going to fucking stand right in front of it. The Rob Lowe show. I love it. This is part of this grace of getting older. This is part of it bein the pretty light. And to go stand right back in front of it.

Rob Lowe. Yes. Love, by the way. It takes a it takes a certain sort of narcissistic courage. I love it. I can love it. And the thing is, there's a whole lot of a whole lot of people that feel the same way, but just couldn't say it is poetically as you just did.

That's what I'm saying. You got to be able to own it, own your shit, man, you know. Oh, it's debt now, is it true that you were in contention and whenever I hear this, I know what we all know what that's like, it means it may be true, maybe it isn't for Titanic.

So I went and read for Titanic with Kate Winslet, and it was not really options. It was like they filmed it. So it was like into a screen test time and I left there. Did Jim did Jim shoot it handheld? Did Jim shoot it himself? Cameron. I don't think so, I don't remember. Yeah, he did. Jim. I think because I only got, like, nods from Jim, but from the producers and Kate and everything we like after we left, you know, it was one of those ones where they followed me.

And on when we got outside, they were like, that went great. I mean, kind of like hugs.

I really thought it was going to happen. It did. So did not knock.

I still because because I asked I asked Cameron about this because the the sort of gossip over years that I had heard and would see written about me was that I had the role of Titanic and turned it down. Negative. Oh, no, not not factual, I did not get offered that role because I've always said I was like for a while that was like who was my I got to find that agent. They're in trouble that way. If I got.

Well, I didn't ever get the offer. I did not ever get the offer. And Jim finally confirmed that he either got someone, he the malaprops something or someone took something. He said in that ran for a while. And I had to answer that question, but I never got offered that. As far as I know. I'm telling you, I did go have a good screen test, thought I had the role but did not get the role.

So, yeah, I was in contention.

I could have been a different movie. You could have been that. And I could I was I screen tested for the Billy Zane bad guy part. OK, with with and Jim shot that I'll never forget. He shot handheld shot at himself.

OK, neither one of us made the cut, but we were in the running now. We were in the running where we were. We could have been contenders but it could have happened, could have happen for us.

But what I also need to ask you about, I'm doing a deep dive on the career here, bro. And you've got such a good one. It's it's so fun to go back and and you never know. Like you said, people talk to you about movies and TV shows you it's dependent on the time you're living in the demographic, what the age of the person is, whatever, what their tastes are. And I find it always so fascinating to to see what people are going to come up with.

Frailty, frailty. Well, you pulled one eye deep in that I have, sir. Tall, I told you was coming out of the archives. Bill Patten, who was my best friend. I mean, we're best friends. We're best friends.

Oh, I didn't know that. Well, God bless Bill, man. I know.

God, he was like, yeah, I bought a you got a cigarette. I got Matthew McConaughey to do my movie.

Yeah, of course. He was a child. That's a really wild bill. Frailty is a really good movie.

Really gnarly, really intense.

Really wrote it good. Still still friends with Brent Hanley, who's the writer of that. Yep. Yeah. Really, really good movie. And then of course, how was your experience on Magic Mike. I love Magic Mike.

I did to know my Magic Mike was look, Steven Soderbergh calls he and Steven Soderbergh often called Matthew McConaughey being a movie for I'm like, oh, wow, great. And then I remember getting on the phone with him when he tells me I got this script coming to this guy, Dallas, he runs a strip club, male strippers man. And he tells me I was like, oh, this sounds corny. And he's like, oh, it's real.

And I was like, OK, before we get off the phone, give me one launchpad line just because I'm not going to get the script still two days away from me. And I said, don't leave me with 48 hours in my imagination to run into what this character is without you.

Give me just like one logline to think about as so smart. And so he sits quiet and he goes as character names Dallas and he goes well. You know, one thing about Dallas is. He's pretty connected to the UFO man, so I'm saying that in your book, you talk about a launch pad line. I'm going, oh, he just took he's opening up saying the roof is off so little. So I started studying like this guy's a capitalist.

I started going on on the days of set running the production like I was running my show. I'm calling Golon the new dancer. We're going to say pitchin scenes that we never even shot. Like here's what you do with tobacco money in our pockets. I want you to write down what kind of car every woman pulled up in. And if they were the ones who had a driver, I want to know if they're paying you in Twenty's or Ulysses S.

Grant or Ben Franklin's or Black Label, American Express. I want to know who's getting the Mercedes in the Black Label, American Express. I'm going to have my main man. Channing Tatum is going to be zeroing in on them, because what we need to do is get them in the back room after when they pull out the big bucks for the private dance. And that's how we get more money in my pocket. So it was got all these things.

It was just super fun. And none of you ever work with Steven before, but he. Here you go to set. And you better just start doing what you care to do because you're sitting around, you and I are talking over there talking like this, we look down. Steve is not giving us any direction about where the scene is. The aid hadn't told us where to go exactly. But all of a sudden, you look over and tracks being laid and all of a sudden there's a camera.

And obviously you look over and Stephen's head pops up from behind the camera and goes. Which means do it, do the same. I got I got that same phone call from Steven for Behind the Candelabra and he was like, so. It's in and I've been I've been following the movie because I love Michael Douglas and I love Matt Damon and they're playing Liberace and his yes boy toy boyfriend. I'm like, I am so down for this movie, I can't fucking wait to see it.

And then they called me to be in it.

And but there was I was like, well, what's this character again? Like you did as like because he's a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, a B grade, low rent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. I immediately was like, oh, so he looks like every guy at the Laker game that has good seats but not great seats. And that was my way in, because I so know that you were great. Yes, that's so true. And it's something a little just a little context of a character, that guy.

Now, he's just he's not the great seat. He's the good that there's a whole world. You could write an encyclopedia on that guy and that one line, he it and that's what I call a launch pad line. When you go, oh, there's a book on this character I and that tells you so much about about somebody who looks like everybody at the game, but not the great seats, but the good seats. It's perfect. Yeah.

And there you go. Yeah. You know how that guy wakes up in the morning. You know how he takes a whiz. You know what he drinks at night. You know where he's having lunch. You know. You know all of it.

Yep. So here's my here's my issue, though. Tell me if you think like this, too, because you also like I also love that you like to pop in like like on Wolf of Wall Street where you just pop it. It's like you come out of the fucking bullpen, throw fucking 106 mile an hour heater, strike out the side, doff your cap in return. I love that. I love that shit. So but you also are like, OK, I got all these great hitters I got to like, strike outside here, man.

I don't want to get blown off the field here because I definitely am competitive that way. And I'm thinking, OK, so I got Michael Douglas, who's one of the great movie TV actors who ever lived. Matt, who's as good as anybody who's ever been, can play everything under the fucking sun. They're playing larger than life characters.

I don't want to get worked over by these guys. And so I came up with this really insane makeup and hair idea and I called Steve and I said, hey, just tone wise, like, what's the sort of like ceiling here?

Because I have kind of a big I dig music. Oh, the bigger the better is fantastic. So I, I do the crazy face that I did. And then I was thinking, oh, I'm going to look like Brooke Shields like because I look like her anyway. So you can only imagine with the smooth face and that ponytail, it's like I'm going to look very fey and they're playing fey so I don't want to do that. So what do I do?

So I gave them the voice of the guy from the men's from Men's Wearhouse.

Men's Wearhouse. You got to like the way you look.

I figured if I did it if I didn't mean if I do because they're doing that. So. Yes, yes. Oh, beautiful. Beautiful.

And that's the way we're that's the way we think of I right that. Well, there you go. That's it. And that's that's comedy genius. And it was still a real person and you know, and there you go. And Steven again told you same thing. Now the roofs off. Come on.

You know you know, when I worked like with your time at Scorsese with Wall Street. Yeah, man, I'm stepping into a well oiled machine, Scorsese and DiCaprio worked together many times. They've already been in production. I'm.

Can I just stop you there? Because this is what you're describing. That is a freight train. Ripping down the tracks, and if you try to jump that in the wrong way, it'll rip your fuckin arm off. Yeah, so right there.

You know, if you right, all right, I always rewrite an add on to all my scenes because I'm always like, well, what if the scene just went on and on? What if it was on for an hour? You know, your monologue, you then it'll expose some things. Most of it I never end up using. Some of it I use is good. Some of it's not. So I get about launchpad lines. That character had a launch pad.

I mean, that's a line that I read in the original script that made me go, who the fuck is that? Who really believes that?

And it was this. Leonardo DiCaprio's character, ask my what's the secret? What's the secret to the stockbroker thing? And my guy tells him. Cocaine and hookers, and I went, oh, who is that guy? Now, what if that's not an attitude? What if this guy really believes that? Whoa, now there's a book on that guy who's, like, serious. So then I go off starting about, you know, let's exaggerate how many times Jack off a day this rookie numbers.

Then I start talking to these other people that had done those trades in that day. And all of them. When you say like, so were you on the up and up, they'd all be like, yeah.

And you're like, oh, this is a whole scam going here.

It's a few guys. If you guys it's all a mirage they're selling. So you start saying all this stuff. So now I then. And if you've ever done this, but you write something out and you add to a scene. If you pitch it. You better not be pitching it, basically, sometimes it's best to just get in the scene and do it and don't even tell anyone you want to, but sometimes in this time I'm with Scorsese.

I'm like, I think I got to run it by him.

But I know you better nail it in when you're pitching it, because if you don't nail it in the pitch, the answer's no. Yep. Yep. So I get him on the monitor and I go through this thing that I made the scene about two to three times longer than it was really scripted. And I ripped through it. I knew I'd nailed it. And he's just sitting there. He just laughing. He loves funny. And he just laughed and laughed and I was over.

He goes, I love it. You did you say the thing about the thing? And I go, Yeah. Because he said the other thing about the other thing. Yeah. He goes, great, can do that. So we get in there on the day and I just go rip it. We work it. Got it. Five takes. We're set. I'm banging on my chest before the take because I'm partially nervous about stepping into this freight train.

So beat on your chest gets my voice down low. I'm nervous. My voice is a little high, going to lower my voice. I want to get in the rhythm of my character in this scene and I also am taking some enjoyment in the entire crew going, what the fuck's the weird guy doing? What's McConaughey doing? I wanted to I was putting myself on an island drive to go like, what the fuck is he doing? I needed to feel like, OK, you got to dig your way out of this right one day.

And so then we do the thing. Got it. We finished the scene because every time I started the scene, I'd stop beat my chest. I'd seen Leonardo goes, hang on a second, Marty. This was the thing you do before. And I told him what I just told you, because what if you do that scene, bam, next take. Did it do it? The scene started off, got through the scene, put it off book into the scene with it, and there it was.

And then Leo took it and actually used it later in the film. It was great. So super fun. And the way you you know, you work with people that collaborate. I stole the Fugazi Fugazi thing from Leonardo. He had said that that were a couple of days before I was like, what is that? And he explained it. And he was like, yeah, to four guys guys you to and at that play on words. So that was him.

A lot of that was his idea. And then you have Marty, whose love and humor and laughter and saying you can say anything you want, just make sure you said the thing about the thing. And, you know, that's how that went down. That was super fun because it is highly intimidating to step in for those one day roles.

Oh, it's brutal. Nothing more brutal. And you crushed it. And the thing I love about it, too, is, is the graciousness of Leo YPP. Like he's like he's like he wants you to win. Yep. That's another thing. Not everybody I've worked with people that didn't didn't want me to win. Yeah. I've worked with people that you can see him going, oh, this guy is bringing the goods. I want to undercut him a little bit.

I got I'm going to I got to bring him down. And you know, but fortunate I've worked with more people, a lot more people in Leonardo, one of them who is like, oh no, this is great. This is cool. Yes. I'm going to see you over here and be the guy that's listen going on, huh? Show and was feeding me ideas. And I got to say that that's how I learned to work in Dazed Confused.

That was three lines character, Wooderson and Daisy views that turned into three weeks work. Why? Because the director, Richard Linklater, kept inviting me back and every one of those other actors cohousing, Affleck, London, Parker, Posey, all those actors would just throw me stuff. I don't know. What do you think? What is in the middle of a scene? Just lob me stuff. So they were writing me in. You know, they went to they went to Richard Linklater and said, I know we're supposed to go get Aerosmith concerts at the end of days and so and so's car.

But we like Wooderson. Can we go? We think, what are some tickets? Can we go to go get our tickets? Wooderson car wreck comes. We hate it. And I think yeah.

I love that you're a a local hire. Right. As they call it. Yeah. See, so for people listening in, like when you make a movie in a location like you go to, you don't make it in Hollywood, make it in Dallas, you make it in Chicago, whatever.

To save money, you hire the local actors, local hires. Right. You don't bring the hit. And, you know, you're you're at the mercy of what the local talent is. And I love when local hires become big stars. I did a movie that wasn't a very good movie years ago, and we shot it in Chicago. And we had this three line part like you're talking about. And we found this kid, John Cusack, and he was funny as shit.

He had three lines and we kept throwing him stuff every single day because he just was crushing and his part became, you know, probably like a fourth lead in the movie.

And then the next thing you know, he's like, I'm going to leave Chicago and, you know, but I love when that stuff goes on. Yeah, yeah. There's room. You know, one great thing about what we do in the arts is there's room for everyone to win a blue ribbon. You know what I mean, there's there's room for every character, even the person that has one line to believe. That the whole movie's about them, it's kind of what's great about what we do when everybody, every small part, you want them to take that ownership to go don't this movie's about.

And have you seen people with one line steal the light or one scene? I'm thinking of Apocalypse Now. J.D. Spradlin has got one scene.

He's got he's like he gives the speech about there's a conflict in every human heart, conquest of darkness, and whether in the crazy shrimp heads in apocalypse is one scene. It's all you remember. There's a great moment in Inglourious Basterds where Eli Roth is coming out and he's going to beat this Nazi to death with a baseball bat. And he looks down at the Nazi and he goes, You got a medal on your on your fucking thing. What's what's that for killing Jews?

And the guy looks up and he says, Theiler. And he just. That actor destroyed, yes, with not just with one word, right?

What you see and you also see what is a bridge of Bridges versus Fehlberg. Tom Hanks.

Yeah, bridges of all of that movie's amazing.

Well, the guy the little kid in the hallway that Hanks sits down with on the bench and has that little conversation with, I come out of that movie going, I want to see the movie about those two. I want to see a whole movie based on that, those two in that scene and what that relationship could be. So, yes, sometimes it's a line. Sometimes it's one thing that you go that could be a movie. You go, do you know Tropic Thunder?

Ben, I think still are still talking with Cruise about they came out that going to go make a movie on that character that he played. You know, that's the movie's amazing. That movie is amazing. It's one of those where you can turn it on no matter where it is in the movie. It's worth and fun watching from there until it's over any time it's on. I had Downey came to visit me, you know, Danny and I known each other since sixth grade.

We were in sixth grade history together and he'd come up to to visit. He was telling me about Tropic Thunder. I didn't know anything about it. And he was like he was he gave me a preview of the character, like he did the whole the whole thing for me and my backyard. Yeah. And my son's at that point were like maybe 14 or 15. And they didn't really know what that who Daniel. They don't know anything. But they were riveted by just even the backyard version of that which might go down as one of the greatest performances, his genius days.

Yeah, I felt so good and so good.

And we'll be right back after this. How was that in the talk to me about the 80s? Talk to me about your role in the 80s and I'm well, OK, so let me give you that.

I'm watching. I'm watching. You know, you were my go to guy as an actor to watch. I loved the subject matter, the stories that I was thinking about the world you were the world you were in and, you know, St. Elmo's and all that was what I was doing.

I was fine. Talk to me about the 80s, man.

Thank you. Man of is funny. Pitt was telling me once he's like, I packed up my car, Missouri. But but but before I left, I watch St. Elmo's Fire and I was like, Yeah, that's cool. I like that. Yes, well, it it was such a great time. It was it was a great time.

But also the movie business hadn't totally pivoted. To really an unadulterated celebration of youth, yet so like right there were still tons of adult movies and movies like St Elmo's Fire were still considered other. Did you mean they were they were there was like. There was terms of endearment, right, and then there was Saddam. OK, got you saying 100 percent so. So we're still living in that. Were they had there was the big chill. Yes.

And then there was so we were that we were always like we were like in the if the big show was a network television show, we were in the CW.

Yes. Is what it is sort of sort of what it felt like, right. A little bit, yes. But. So he didn't really have that sense of we've made it like we're movie stars because we weren't in those movies yet. OK, that's what was really kind of doing well.

Right. And oh, they're crushing. Yeah. And you're going out and, you know, there's a group of you you find you we love to come see and spend time with you in these different worlds. You're older for me. High school aspirations of cool and things like that. And affluence relationships. Yeah. You know, different than the John Hughes High School experience. They were you know, they were they know you were independent. You're out.

You were into the world. You had ambitions, you had problems, you had relationships, you had friendships, you've broken friendships. Feelings were hurt, you know, stories, you know you and what's love, what's not. What's fair is what have you. I loved all this. The subject matter is juicy. Great stuff. But you're coming out. And that's still S.W., though. So when's this transition happen? When all of a sudden, like, you go or do you you know you know what it was when I did about last night.

Yeah. Which is which to me is so good. In an end, you know, it's David Mamet.

It's a David Mamet script with no one's on but that smooth.

But do you remember the headphones move like that? But I still I use that one. I love headphones. The headphones move worked back in the day. It's great.

But that felt like the transition for me because it was more it was a tad more adult, more sophisticated. The you know, it was a mammoth thing. And Ed Zwick, it was his first movie and he went on to do a lot of big, like adult movies after that. And that sort of felt like a real a real transition. But it's you know, I've always by the way, how have we not talked about Joel Schumacher? I mean, who directed Time to Kill and directed me in Almost Fire?

I mean, how have we gone this interview with this talk?

You know, I just feel like someone said I mean, in Canton, Mississippi, and we're in there and we're in the production office. He's got this big office down, go down at the warehouse and the courthouse. He's got a big black board up there. And then we talk and and and I ask him, I go, well, Joe, what's one like?

What's the one thing you can say, like your movies that all your movies are just going to have? What are what are you about? If you want to say you're one thing. Oh, that's easy. And he turns around on the chalkboard, it's a piece chalk and he writes s e x y baby.

It's like sexy, sexy now, you know. And he did something for me. I can't wait to hear you tell your experience with him, but talk about I was coming in and got the lead in this movie.

Time to Kill. Time to Kill and Kill. I had a couple of moments where I get a little heady thinking I need to be more of an actor. He would just come to me and my children would go, Matthew, you are take Ganz. It's why I hired you do what you would do, it was the greatest thing you could have told a young actor who's now got the lead in a movie disco. No, I hired you for a reason.

And what a what a what a casting director that guy is. And then he he had above all else, Joel had taste. Oh, yes. Above. Above. All above all, is the only time his taste failed him is when he put nipples in the Batsuit. That's the only only time. That's the only time.

Well, you like it was the only time he had to put you'd like to push a little bit, just push the well.

Well, the best was I was interested in playing Robin. And so I was like, lobbying, lobbying. And my agents were like, no. Joel has a very specific vision of George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell as a guy.

I bet he does. And I knew I wasn't getting that. Yeah, you're not breaking up that tree over OK now. Oh, yes.

Chumash Chumash so much. Is it written in there that you play the saxophone or is that the sexiest sexier instrument choice?

Well, there's a couple of things that are kind of interesting. So, like, there's more hair most per capita in my hair in that in that movie. But it could have been worse because I'd never heard of hair extensions. I'd never heard of them. And Joel wanted me to have hair extensions. Yes.

And I remember driving to the valley, to the hair extension place, and I got lost. I could not figure out where to go. And I was really frustrated and I was like, I didn't go. Just because I was lost was like up in like deep in the valley. And then the next day we had to leave. So I missed having hair extensions by proper directions and it could have been so much worse and so much more hair and so much more mousse.

So you didn't know how you can get them?

I never did. That's my real hair. But they were. But it's frosted. I'm wearing. I'd never had my hair dyed. Of course, I don't want my hair dyed coarse and and I had to have an earring and I can make your appearance. Of course, that's a jol thing.

And and and then the cast used to. Sit around and roll their eyes because I got more close ups than anybody else in the movie, and I when when Demi was with Ashton, I was over at that scene with them in ashes like, bro, have you seen seen Elmo's Fire recently?

It's like not really just, oh, you've got to go back and look at that movie as it why?

Because what the camera is doing to you is pornographic.

She must share my schedule. But we miss you so much.

I mean, and the balls of him to be able to I mean I mean, you'd worked but you were not anything they were going to bank on at that time. And he he cast you and change your life.

But he goes I bring up to him. I was originally I met with Joel Schumacher for a time to kill about the part that Kiefer ended up playing, the Freddie Cabral. Wow. I read the script, read the book.

He's like this guy, Jay Brigance. But I don't know if I got the kahunas to bring that up, but I said, no, got to try it. Just try. In that meeting, I got a gap. I went sleeveless. Mellencamp T-shirt, smoked cigarettes. And I kind of gap, and it was like the meeting was over and all of a sudden I go, I go. So who's playing the lead? Jake Brigance. And he goes, I don't know.

Who do you think should? And I remember going, felt my heartbeat go up.

And I mean, it was like. I mean, I should and he goes, oh, that's a great idea, I love it, but it's never going to happen.

It's never going to happen.

Matthew, it's a brilliant idea. But let me tell you something. There's no way the studio's going to cast a relatively unknown. You'd be perfect for the part, but it's just never going to happen now.

We go on. They've got everything else, cash, John Grisham has casting approval over that role because it's based on him. I think I think these are true. I was told they were true. Kevin Costner was under consideration, but they were like, well, at least that old, we need a young girl. You'd wonder why he wouldn't be a successful lawyer.

Earlier, they were looking at Woody, but Woody had come out natural born killers, which Oliver Stone and John Grisham get in an editorial fight because there was a copycat like murder in Mississippi of someone that Gunderson knew and that I had heard that there was John Grisham going, no way.

That guy Woody who played Mickey is going to play me. So that moves him out. They're coming down with a couple of months before every other role is cast. Sandra Bullock's already in the role of Ruark while you're sleeping, comes out now she can greenlight a movie, Internation Green, not a movie, after she was already cast in the third lead. No, can't find the lead. All of a sudden I get a call on a screen test you, Matthew, for the role of Jake Riggins.

We're going to do it on a Sunday. I believe it's Mother's Day. We're going to do it a little studio off of Fairfax. The reason we're not doing it a studio is because even if you do great, you're probably not going to get the role. And as you're coming into Hollywood, I don't want you, Matthew, to have it on your resume that you tried to get a role and screen test for time and didn't get it. How thoughtful is that from the guy that SHUMACK?

So I sneak up to the studio. It's there's a full jury. Camera's lit. It's a screen test. I get up. I read this final summation like a script says he goes, great, great, great. Now throw away the script. Say what you would say. I sit there and say what I would say, and I'm saying stuff that no lawyer would say I would be in contempt of court if I said what that in any way I get.

And he obviously steps in because.

Cut, cut, cut, cut. Great, brilliant, thank you, great. Now goes on, those things happen which make the studio think maybe we could try something out with the newbie. In the role John Grisham sees it, his wife likes his wife tells Janjigian, that's just you all of a sudden I'm working in Piedras Negras on Lone Star with John Sayles. It's midnight. I get a call. John Grisham, Joel Schumacher. You want to be like Brigance.

You got the role. Oh, yeah, I do.

Ran off into the desert, man, about a half a mile to our sweat and tears coming down my eyes, took a knee, put a full moon in the air and reached up there and said, let's shake on it.

Thank you. And that was how that happened. A lot of different things had to go my way. And Schlocker was protecting me the whole way, that's such a great I mean, that's the look. I'm always speak for myself, I have a complicated relationship with what we do, but it's stories like that that did make me remember that I love it. Yep, it's an awesome. Business, we're in the storytelling business and it takes all kinds, you know, I mean, I always talk about people go, you know, oh, that person, the actor that actors weird or whatever.

I'm like, man, I love it when actors have their idiosyncrasies.

As long as they're on time and know their stuff, go do whatever you got to do.

Same, by the way. The more the actors, they'd be like, oh, you're good, here's comes. They're always the ones I love the most.

Me too. Me too. They're always the ones I love the most. Yeah. Did you did you have any did you have any interactions with you. Of course you did. In the Nolan movie with Michael Caine, right? Yes. I mean, by the way, he is not complicated. And people say, oh, here comes Michael Caine. He's a genius.

He's not that guy. I've just pivoted for a minute only because I. I love him so much. And he's a great a great way to look at, like, how people can. He told me this recently. He's and I'm I don't do a Michael Caine, but I'm going to try to do a horrible one here because I can't help myself. Well, it was terrible. I'm not doing it. That was that was like a bad Paul McCartney.

I'm not doing it now.

But he just said that he said he came up with a bunch of dudes and it's Malcolm McDowell. Yeah. There are two or three other ones that he named. And he goes in he goes, I wasn't the best actor, not even close. But the other one, and it wasn't the hottest and I didn't have the best career, but the other ones either drank themselves to death. Or forgot how to act. Hmm, and I was the last man standing.

And now I own it and it's true, I mean, he just he's that he's Michael Caine. I mean, he's he's the guy. It was interesting. I said, what do you mean? They forgot how to act because. Oh, and I forgot I for the life of me, I wish I could remember these specific. There was some actor and some great performance that we all would know. And he goes and he didn't work for like three years after that.

And you start thinking, you start overthinking, you worry about that, and they literally forgot hierarchies. Oh, I know what it was he was saying.

People always gave me shit about being in so many movies and that people thought I worked for money and people thought my kid's done great movies and trash movies isn't the truth of it is. I love acting and I never forgot how to act. And other people did.

And they they like that. Like that young man I was talking about today is wrote himself out of the script.

Yes. Yeah.

They overthought themselves out of the script. They snubbed this. Knobbed themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Out of the script. Yeah. I have a great job. One for you. So and you can you can all do a little parlor game. You seen almost five fans out there. There was a person and I don't want to say. Gender, because that will make it maybe too easy. But there was a person on the show who was struggling with various things, and I'll never forget Joel taking that person saying you have a drug problem, a.

Punctuality problem. A communication problem and a Hollywood problem. It was your writing yourself out of the script. You're forgetting how to act starts. Do you have a drug problem which leads to punctuality problem? Which time is our most valuable thing? You have a communication problem, which means you have a Hollywood problem.

So good, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Chumash now.

Well, this is this was so great. I was so happy to have you. I'm so happy for for. Let me join just to go on the record. It sort of goes without saying that. I almost didn't say it is your work in Dallas Buyers Club is you know, as you know, it's one for the ages. And I get you know, I just I love I love watching from afar. And, you know, I love seeing guys I love do well.

And and by the way, congratulations on the family. Sounds like you're that that might be your greatest accomplishment. I just feel like that's that's a great accomplishment for anybody. But in our business, I also think it's particularly can be hard and you're crushing it.

You know, my my my wife did it, did a great deed. My 12 year olds over here peeking in the window. Levi, before we had kids, she came to me and she goes on one condition. I know what. She goes. You go. Weka. I did the same. Same right on and that have with I talked to and I won't say their names, but I talked to some other fathers that are elder statesmen in our business.

And asked how they did it and they said, well, it's a choice, either friends or dad and each one of them, there were three of them chose friends. That means they went to work, left their family, let their kids stay with their friends in all three of them. Now, their kids are grown out of school and out of the house, said if I could go back and do it again, I'd do the opposite. I'd make them come with because I.

We grew apart. I did. Yeah. I had the same instinct. My kids went everywhere. I went with me. It becomes a little tougher, as you know, when they when they're 12 and 13 and they have their friends. Yeah. Which is one of the reasons why I transitioned into television when I did, because it wasn't television wasn't really that cool yet when I did the West Wing. But part of it was, OK, these kids now have friends of their own.

You can't just uproot them with a tutor or whatever and bring them. So I got up. That was a big part of it. And again, that's how, you know, you talk. How do you stay relevant? How do you do? Sometimes it's just the weird things you do for other reasons that helping you in ways that you never could have imagined. And I don't know if I would have done West Wing had I not had kids at that age where I was really interested in staying in Los Angeles, not doing another movie up in fucking Vancouver where Sri Lanka or whatever.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. They in love it. Well, listen, brother, this is great. Congrats on the book. I think you better start work on a second one. All right. I dig a dig. I got some ideas. I got to work.

I think I want you to write a book about acting. Yeah, because I know I know you've got a great acting class in you. I think we all do. In a weird way. I would. It's like because actors who've been there and done it have such a different perspective.

I would love a book on acting from, you know, career career management acting.

Yeah. Yep. Don't have it. Don't don't have a drug problem. Be on time. Be able to have a Hollywood problem.

Don't have it. Punctuality problem.

You are punctual. People are going. Do you think it was Andrew McCarthy. No. No he's too nice. Was it. Might Peter Nelson. I think Magennis. What do you think it was.

I know it was Mare Winningham. Yes.

Beautiful. Hey, great stuff. I have a great beginning to twenty twenty one men and we're to talk again. Always great to see you. Want to see look for to it in person next time. I do want to end with this though.

When I first met you contact set trailers. I'm sitting on the steps of my white trailer, my star trailer, the one where they're lined up. Skycam. Bounding around the corner with cigar, dressed in a suit, looking sharp, comes over a guy as he's saying hi to me, this person walks around, this attractive person walks around the corner, and without missing a beat while he's got the cigar and saying hi to me, it instinctually.

You looked at me, oh, look at you. I loved it. I was like, look at you. What a great introduction. You didn't even know to look at you. And I was like, it made this person feel so good.

It made me laugh my ass off. And you're just right.

They're going to go on court and do that. Yes. At me.

That's great. Oh, it's the best. And you're the best. Thanks, man. This is so far. Enjoy.

See you next time. You see my brother by the.

I have such a big smile on my face. I think I think that's what he does. Matthew brings smiles to people's faces, that's probably his superpower. I a question I was going to ask him actually was what's your superpower? And I don't need to ask it because I know what it is. He brings a smile to your face.

I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did. I could have talked for another five hours to him and check out the book greenlights. You know, he's he he's in a reconnaissance and we're just living in it and happy to do so. OK, before I sign off today, we try a little something new, some fun over here, literally.

OK, this is a new thing for us. I'm very excited about it. Hopefully you will be too, because it's going to require your participation. It's called the low down line. The low down line, so you, dear listener, can ask me your burning questions. About the show, frankly, about anything, and I'll just be honest, because when I do my One-Man show, I open it up to questions and here's what I know. The weirder, the better.

Like, I don't want to hear like what was it like to be in the outsiders? I don't want that. Don't don't come don't come at me with your weak cheese. Come at me with something. OK, so it's the low down line, so here it is. Here's the number, here's the lowdown line number. Three, two, three five seven oh. Four, five, five, one. That's three to three. Five seven zero four five five one, that's the lowdown line and I have big expectations.

For the question you're going to get me. Thanks, we'll be back next week. Oh, and if you like the show, give us the rating in the review on Apple. We like those things. They move the needle. We like needles that are moving. We like green lights. All right. All right. All right. You have been listening to literally with Rob Lowe, produced and engineered by me, Devon Daventry Bryant, executive produced by Rob Lowe for low profile Adam Sachs and Jeff at Team Coco and Collin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher.

The supervising producer is Aaron Blaggard, talent producer Jennifer Sanders. Please write and review the show on Apple podcast and remember to subscribe on Apple podcast, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast. This has been 18 cocoa production in association with Sketcher.